“Windhorse” Yanked From Hawaii Fest By Director

"Windhorse" Yanked From Hawaii Fest By Director

In a twist on a classic phrase, a case of “he said, he said,” hasenveloped this year’s Hawaii International Film Festival (HIFF).Director Paul Wagner has pulled his film, “Windhorse,” from thefestival, less than ten days before the event’s opening night. Exactlywhat occurred in the months leading up to the withdrawal of the film isstill unclear. Wagner claims that the HIFF bowed to political pressurefrom the People’s Republic of China (PRC) by removing the film fromcompetition.

According to Wagner, the PRC attempted to force last April’s WashingtonD.C. International Film Festival to remove the film, and they refused.“Windhorse” portrays the imprisonment and torture of Tibetan Buddhistnuns, according to a release from Wagner.

On August 14th, Wagner received a fax from the HIFF informing him of hisacceptance into the festival “as a nominee for our highest Award, theGolden Maile for best feature film.” Shortly thereafter, the festivalwas offered a slate of six films, including four world premieres, fromthe PRC. In a telephone conversation on Wednesday, Festival DirectorChristian Gaines told indieWIRE that the HIFF had received rumors thatif “Windhorse” was allowed to screen at the festival, China would pulltheir six films. After examining several options, including pulling thefilm from the festival, both Wagner and the HIFF decided that“Windhorse” should screen at the festival. “Obviously, we’re not goingto acquiesce to the PRC. We’re not going to make a political statementone way or the other,” said Gaines. During these conversations, nomention of the competition was made by either side, according to Gaines.

However, when Wagner received the fest’s program guide in the mail, henoticed that “Windhorse” was not listed as being one of the five filmsin the competition. He then called the HIFF to express his concern overthis removal. According to both Wagner and the HIFF, he was then toldthat the removal of the film was due to an administrative error, butthat the festival could not reinstate the film to competition status.

Gaines reiterated the “administrative error” reasoning for the removal,and stated that the festival “did not make a decision to exclude thefilm from competition.” The fact remains, however, that the film hadbeen nominated for the award in August, but was not in competition whenthe program guide was printed. According to Gaines, the result of theerror was that the festival had already programmed five films in thecompetition section, and to add another one, even one that hadpreviously been awarded a competition slot, would be to open the fest toa barrage of complaints from filmmakers whose films weren’t chosen tocompete.

Speaking with indieWIRE by telephone on Wednesday, Wagner stated that“it’s disappointing, it’s upsetting and it’s a little frightening that[Gaines] would initially ask us to pull our film from the fest justbecause the Chinese had offered him a slate of four films, and thenlater unilaterally pull our film from competition for that reason.” Forhis part, Gaines denied that the position of the Chinese government on“Windhorse,” had anything to do with the film’s removal from competition.“There’s no politically motivated reason why the film did not go intocompetition,” he said, adding that “the accusation of using the GoldenMaile award to silence political dissent, I resent very very very verymuch.” While Wagner, speaking of Gaines, remains “sympathetic to hisproblems,” and thinks that there was “a very real possibility that[the HIFF] would have lost [the Chinese] films when [China] found outthat [“Windhorse” was] in the festival, he maintains that “it wouldn’tbe a big deal if six films were nominated” for the Golden Maile.

Whatever the reason for the removal of the film from competition and theresulting withdrawal from the fest by Wagner, “Windhorse” will not bescreened as a part of this year’s festival.